Sep

24

Invitation

September 24, 2008 | Leave a Comment

I’ve got a wicked cold today, and can’t really do a long post right now.

But tomorrow is Shel Silverstein’s birthday. I am working that into my lesson on suffixes for tomorrow. I didn’t even know that until I looked up the date to see if I could drum up a “this day in history” style worksheet. Other things happened on September 25th’s throughout history, including a handful of ancient battles, the passage of the Bill of Rights, etc. But this is the one that jumped out at me, because yes, it’s that important.

There are always pieces to be found on books that have influenced celebrities, politicians, other writers, etc. Since the recent much-overhyped NY Mag piece on the death of book publishing, I’ve been seeing more of them, or maybe just noticing more of them. There have been interesting ones and boring ones, mostly about books that influenced people when they were young and learning, books that taught future professional writers and readers how to love their trade. The mix is eclectic, for everyone who swears upon The Great Gatsby there’s an equally adamant promoter of Calvin and Hobbes. (I’d definitely go with the latter). There were a lot of books that pushed me toward reading when I was a kid, some of them good, some of them not, all of them influential. Shel Silverstein’s books were among them. I went through that book so many times that I honestly think I might have become a slightly different kind of reader if I’d never been introduced to A Light in the Attic. And for all the subtle and subversive poetry and broad, sprawling, wonderful novels I read later on, I’m pretty sure those early books prepped me to understand and appreciate the same themes. He was just using funny drawings, and far fewer words.

So in honor of that bard’s birthday, have a poem:

“Invitation”

If you are a dreamer, come in.
If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,
A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer . . .
If you’re a pretender, come sit by my fire,
For we have some flax golden tales to spin.
Come in!
Come in!

Sep

14

New and improved

September 14, 2008 | Leave a Comment

All right, now that I’ve dusted a little around this site, I feel like I can post again with some freedom. Most of the changes have been small or detail-oriented, but there are two big ones:

  • I’m no longer in the freelance web design game. I haven’t been since late 2007, and most of my friends and contacts know it, but in case you’re curious, I’m taking a break to concentrate on other things. If and when that status changes, I’ll let everyone know.
  • I added a Google Reader widget to this site (see the sidebar). This is just a list of other items that I catch on my reader and think are worth sharing. You can read the full articles and any comments I’ve added to them here. Do you guys like the ninja layout? I do. On this page, you can just glance over the titles and see if anything strikes your interest.

Life-wise, things are much different and much the same from the last time I was regularly updating this. I’m still in the publishing game, I’m still an amateur tech geek. This year’s major goal was a presidential biography reading project (Washington - Nixon, one full bio each)  that got way out of hand very early on, and now has expanded to a looser, wider historical survey of all kinds of characters relevant to American history. I have learned to cook pretty well but still can’t keep plants to save my life. I’m still teaching at Literacy Partners and enjoying it even more–having a new and very on-the-ball co-tutor has helped a lot. My summer went quickly but well, my sister came from FL and spent a month with me in the city (she just left this morning). I’m still dating the same guy and that’s swimming right along. I have been listening to a lot of country music for reasons I can’t fully explain, even to myself, but am also building up my playlist of international techno and house artists to even it out.

My New Season Resolution is to update this thing with something half-interesting or relevant at least once a week. I joined Twitter recently and those posts (infrequent at this point) will come here, but I’m talking about “real” updates. Will it happen, or will I once again fail the blogosphere? Stay tuned and you all will find out.  

Sep

1

housekeeping

September 1, 2008 | Leave a Comment

I’m doing some serious housekeeping on this sad and dusty website. Stay tuned for more!

May

12

Now that’s what I call democracy!

May 12, 2007 | Leave a Comment

Go vote for the Chosen One: USPS Jedi Master

I’ll be honest and say I voted for Darth Vader. What can I say? I’m a purist with my modern mythology, and in the Joseph Campbell sense, he is the hero of the series–not just the last 3 prequels but the whole thing as an arc. It’s only right that he’s the representative of the story in this little slice of history trivia, too.

Speaking of history: About a month ago, I took my students through the introduction to the Declaration of Independence and promised that I’d give a copy of the full text to anyone who was interested. Only one guy expressed interest at the time, but last week two others asked about it. Next week’s lesson will be on essay writing basics, so I think I’m going to go out on a limb, bring in the full text, maybe some more reading-level-appropriate supporting/explanation materials (my students are grade levels 4-early 6, the text alone is a little intense for that–and, hell, for plenty of people in college, too) and ask them to get together a small paper on it. It’s a step and a half above the regular worksheets and writing assignments, but I am a classic American history geek and if they’re interested, I’m happy to integrate more Revolution-era texts into the lessons as we go along.

Anyway, what a week. Wow. I’ve just been trying to keep it together. I’ve also been listening to the most horrid and entertaining Mexican rap since cinco de mayo, and it seems unlikely that this trend will stop anytime soon. Clearly Inwood is rubbing off on me. But hey, at least it’s not the particularly atrocious reggaeton they’re always blasting on the streets out here. I’m not that far gone yet.

I finished The Testament of Gideon Mack this week and have to take a minute here to highly recommend it. It’s a sly, funny and insightful look into how faith and belief work (differently and dangerously) in our communities and in our minds. I empathized a lot with Gideon, for his constant confusion, his need for sense and order, his simultaneously false and quixotically earnest insistence on telling the truth about his experiences as he understood them. It’s anything but a beach read, but it will suck you in. If you’ve got time this summer, pick it up and check it out.

May

7

false advertising!

May 7, 2007 | Leave a Comment

Somebody tell me how it’s fair to use this title:
Muslim-Christian soccer tie scrapped after sex row
…to trick people into reading a perfectly boring and predictable article about Muslim imams refusing to play a team including women priests at soccer?
Dash my hopes for something more interesting in the news today than Paris going to jail, why don’t they.

I did appreciate the part about the “special feelings,” though. Believe me, nothing will help people take your faith seriously like using the language of an elementary school “intro to sex ed” lesson to explain why you can’t play with girls.

Anyway, happy belated cinco de mayo to everyone. I hope you all drank quite a bit of tequila and shot a few Frenchmen to keep in with the holiday spirit. There was a very successful house party here in Inwood for the 5th, and although it killed any hope I had for being productive on Sunday, it was more than worth the sacrifice. I also have leftover tamales from now until probably next year. That’s also for the best–they took a whole weekend to cook and I won’t be doing that again anytime soon.